The photo album I posted was just an artistic look at some of the realities in Iran, that depicts how people are so universally similar.
If you want to talk about the oppression of women and women's rights in Iran Kai, then lets start with some history.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/ency/blwh_iran.htmAmong the ideas imported into Iran from the West was the notion that women should participate in the public sphere. The Pahlavi government encouraged women to get as much education as possible and to participate in the labor force at all levels. (1950's)
Women were active participants in the Revolution that toppled the shah.
In 1963 women were given the right to vote and to hold public office.
Interesting isn't it. Boy, wouldn't we have benefited if some world power, Russia maybe, could have come to occupy us prior to 1920 to help 'show' us that women deserve the right to vote.
In the US even, as recently as 1910, it was completely unacceptable for any woman to show any leg at all. Heck, jeans weren't even acceptable. Boy, we sure needed a superpower to come here and 'help' us with our problem.
The point being:
1.) Cultural views such as dress code and suffrage change as a result of progress, from motivations inside the society that fights for the change.
2.) And if the change is forced by an outside power, that is NOT going to be taken kindly. I mean, can you imagine, Russia invading us because we didn't allow women to vote or show their legs? Do you think that would have HASTENED our cultural change? Or made us more dead set against it? Hell, we still have some elderly who remain pissed at Russia and all it stood for, and they didn't do anything remotely close to invading and occupying us. Of course, I'm using Russia as just an example, I'm well aware Russia didn't give a damn about anyone's personal liberties.
Iran is changing on it's own, and for the better. Our presence in the mid east is only undermining that, as the changes seen as 'western influences' are resisted as resentment towards the west grows as a result of our actions there.
Forcing something greater, like a governing system, on a people is even more bound to fail. The Shah is the perfect example. We fucked that up, leading to this quote almost 50 years later from Madeleine Albright:
"
The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America."
That's the sound of history repeating.
